


Upside Down

by ladybubblegum



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, malia is so fascinating, mostly a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1941648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybubblegum/pseuds/ladybubblegum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malia knew she wasn't a coyote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upside Down

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this written for a while but felt really guilty about posting it when my sciles reversebang fic wasn't finished but now it is so here we are.
> 
> This is set right before the introduction-of-malia-as-a-main-character scene where she's walking through the hall talking to finstock at the end of 3b.

Malia knew she wasn’t a coyote.

The instincts were strong--she’d been in coyote form for too long for them not to be--but even when she was an animal, she knew she was a girl. She had girl thoughts. The coyote skin softened them a little, made them fuzzy in her brain like a dream, but she was aware that they existed, that she was growing, getting older, maturing.

She’d been around other coyotes for so long, though, that normal human things, while recognizable, just seemed strange to her. There were things that humans felt that coyotes simply didn’t. Attachments to not-pack. Selflessness. Tact. These things didn’t exist in her coyote world, and she found them difficult to readjust to after returning to her human one. She knew these feelings, these concepts, remembered them being a part of her as much as they were a part of Stiles or Scott, but it was like a long lost memory that her conscious mind just couldn’t quite reach, no matter how hard she strained for it. It had been so long since she had to think about anything but survival.

Not everything was different. Her body had matured like a human’s, she’d gone through puberty the way she would have as a girl, when she was 13 girl-years. She understood sex, and what it was, and what it was often used for (there was a video, when she was eight and in second grade; she remembered understanding marriage and dating and boys; she’d almost kissed Gregory Brown behind the swingset during recess one day but he ran away from her before she could). Coyotes didn’t associate sex with nearly as many emotions as humans did, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t feel them. She was still a girl. Still a person, even wrapped in the fuzzy blanket of animal.

Affection, she knew well. Her brain kept packaging it in terms of _pack_ and _family_ , but she knew what it was and felt it naturally. She’d had a pack, and she loved them. They loved her. She’d bring them bits of a kill when they were injured or unwell and holed up in the den. She’d protect them from predators. Sure, she’d leave them behind if saving them meant them both possibly dying, but that didn’t make her feelings for them any less sharp and meaningful.

She liked Stiles.

No one had wanted to touch her after becoming human again. She was disoriented and cold, always cold. In the coldest place she’d ever known, Stiles had offered her warmth, and she knew he didn’t understand what it meant to coyote-her, how much it had reminded her of pack and family and _safe_ , how much he’d grounded her by simply taking her hands in his and trying to warm them, but it didn’t make her any less grateful for it.

He made her human instincts take over her coyote-brain. He made her remember how nice things were with fingers and skin. She liked having a mouth to kiss with. There was no kissing in the woods. She liked kissing. She liked the slide of his lips across hers, the stroke of his tongue at the edge of her lip and inside. She liked touching him, like stroking fingers up his side and making him laugh because he was ticklish there. She liked the press of his hips against hers, his stomach against hers, his chest against hers, his leg between hers, the feel of his blunt teeth on her neck, shooting sparks through nerve endings she didn’t remember having.

He was scorching hot against her cool skin; he made her feel like molten liquid inside. He made her want to do not-coyote things. He made her want ice cream and skating rinks and picnics in the park, and all the other person things that made her happy before. And he was soft. Human. Even more human than she was, he could be broken. From what she knew about his pack, he had to be the weakest. She wondered, for a long time after, how was he still alive, how was he not left yet? But she thought of him dead and felt sorrow. She knew sorrow, and hated it. She was happy he wasn’t dead.

When she returned to Beacon Hills, she found him first, even before his alpha.

When she’d broken into the quiet room to get Stiles out and bring him through the closed unit, her mind had been on nothing more than his promise to help her change back. The coyote lingered just under her skin, but it was also just out of reach. Some part of her understood that she hadn’t been meant to be able to change that night, that she should have had to learn to bring it out, eventually. Stiles had even mentioned, offhand, that he knew of a werewolf who could change like she had, but that wolf had been powerful and older and experienced. She didn’t want experience. She wanted fuzzy dream coyote thoughts and her den in the woods where she didn’t have to think about anything but her next meal and her own safety.

Now, though, standing at the door of the house she’d followed Stiles’ father’s scent to (it was everywhere in the town, and it was strong; earth and leather and the sharp tang of liquor), her priorities had shifted. She still wanted to be a coyote again. But then there was Stiles, who made her feel both the closest to wild and the furthest from it at the same time, and she didn’t understand him. She needed to understand him, understand how he was able to make her feel the way she did. She needed to crack him open and see what made him Stiles so that maybe she could figure out why she was Malia. 

Maybe that would help her remember how she could be coyote.

She pressed a finger against the doorbell and stepped back, her stomach squirming. She didn’t even know why she was nervous. She’d brought the sword and the picture to Scott. He hadn’t even asked her to do it. The only thing she’d been responsible for was getting him to the basement. She didn’t know Stiles very well, but part of her knew, instinctively, that he wasn’t the type to back out of a deal (and another, quieter part of her knew full well that wasn’t the reason she was nervous).

He answered the door, and smiled when he saw her, wide and full of teeth, and it almost felt like home.

**Author's Note:**

> come bug me on [tumblr](http://ladybubblegum.tumblr.com).


End file.
